Years ago, Chris went to the venerable Music Inn, intending to pick up “something interesting.” He returned with this, a 12-string Turkish instrument called a Cümbüş (pronounced joom-bush). It’s basically a combination of a banjo, a mandolin and fretless bass, combining all the disadvantages of each instrument (apologies to Peter Schickele).
The thing is remarkably difficult to play. I usually subscribe to the philosophy that if I can play a clean note on it, I can make music out of it (harp and vibes, yes; sax and trumpet, no). But the Cümbüş has me beat. I’ve never been able to do anything useful with it, other than to make the people around me feel better when I stop playing.
So I decided to look on YouTube, to see what the instrument sounds like in the hands of someone that knows what they’re doing. As you might expect, there are some killer players. Which is the kind of thing that makes me want to give humanity a big hug — invent a nasal, impossible-to-play-in-tune instrument, and somebody will learn to play the shit out it. Ignore the poor sound quality and check out this guy.
Although to be fair, I had to look at quite a few videos, with musicians of varying degrees of competence, to find that. To save you the trouble, I’ve created Cümbüşfest!, which uses YouTube’s easy embedding feature to allow you to enjoy a number of Cümbüş performers simultaneously, thus conserving your valuable browsing time. Turn it up, enjoy, send to your friends.
What could be more ordinary than to express a desire, and then to try to satisfy that very thing? But in the barren plain that lies between what we have and what we think we must obtain, the seeds of madness are sown. The rabbit, motivated to seek comfort and validation of the most fleeting kind, unmasks his neuroses, exposing a dark and incessant addiction that threatens to drag his very being to the depths of the cereal bowl of despair. Yet who among us has not felt the compulsion to answer the call of the hollow ringing of the soul with the ephemeral, the transitory, the vitamin-fortified?
And yet the children, immune to, or perhaps empowered by this cri de coeur, offer no solace. Only mockery, and condescension. ”Frivolous Lagomorph,” they intone shrilly. ”This thing, this totem, what you most wish for, it is for me and my kind!”[emphasis added]. And so, in this dusky oven is forged another link in history’s ignominious chain that divides the us and the other.
But let us also forge a mirror from these same materials, and we see: that is I. Or to quote the great philosopher Lionel Ritchie - “We Are The Children” [emphasis added]. For even the very youngest among us know the concepts of me and mine, and certainly at the heart of human nature lies a Cartesian awareness of self. So although you are indeed the rabbit, you are also the rabbit’s tormentor. You are desire and you are the gatekeeper. Is this duality irreconcilable? Is it our curse to lie in prison, holding the keys to our emancipation in our hands?
Next: The perils of unchecked optimism, as embodied by a certain tiger.
“Northern Lights” leads off the new Calming Park compilation from Zurich-based producer Olivier Rohrbach. We’re in good company - here’s the track list:
1. Science For Girls - Northern Lights
2. Goldfrapp – All Night Operator (Part 1)
3. Sam Sparro - Waiting For Time
4. Supreme Beings Of Leisure - This World
5. Amy Winehouse - ‘Round Midnight
6. The Bird And The Bee - Because
7. Fenomenon & Olivier Rohrbach - Calming Park (Ondular Mix)
8. Joan As Police Woman – Holiday
9. Bugo - Posso Entrare?
10. The Cardigans – Slow
11. Melody Gardot – Goodnite
12. Berry - Las Vegas
13. Me’Shell - Ndegeocello (Feat. Sabina, Ron Blake & Sabina) Sciubba - Aquarium
14. Yoav - Club Thing
15. The Shortwave Set - Sun Machine
16. Madita - Deep Down
17. Marlena Shaw - California Soul (Diplo Remix)
That Yoav track especially knocks me out. I first heard it on Anji Bee’s Chillcast. Listen to it on his myspace.
It bugs me when people use the word “literally” to mean “very”. Maybe I’m just getting crankier, but I feel like I’m hearing this more and more. In LA a couple months ago I was watching a local news broadcast (”up next: a squirrel who waterskates!“) and heard a shining example of the genre. In a story about how poorly American auto manufacturers are faring against their European counterparts, the business reporter said this:
“It seems that American car companies are literally taking a backseat to the Europeans…”
Arrrggh! No! The companies are not actually sitting in cars, they’re not people, they can’t do that! Madam, surely you mean that they are metaphorically taking a backseat, which of course is the exact opposite of literally.
Also, from this Reuters story about extending the mission of the Mars Phoenix lander:
“‘We are literally trying to make hay as the sun shines,’ Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told reporters.”
No! No actual hay involved here, Sir! But I do give you points for the “sun” part of the phrase being literal.
And from an NPR radio segment I heard about parties where they serve “miracle fruit“, which re-wires your tastebuds, so that sour foods taste sweet.
“I’ve seen people’s lives literally turned upside-down after experiencing this.”
I like soundtracks from films where the music plays a significant role, where the music holds up on its own. Somewhere between typical underscore, and say, a music video.
10. Orfeu
A Felicidade
A fantastic mix of samba, bossa, and orchestral music, all produced by Caetano Veloso. Hard to pick a favorite cut, but this version of “A Felicidade”, from the original film “Orfeu Negro” just knocks me out. That’s Maria Luiza Jobim, A.C. Jobim’s daughter, on vocals. Also deserving of special mention is Jaques Morelenbaum’s fantastic arrangements on the orchestral cuts, beautifully performed by this orchestra.
9. Dead Man Walking
Isa Lei
Great international mix of musicians on this album, including Eddie Vedder, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ry Cooder, and V. M. Bhatt. The last two are featured on this cut, which is also on their duet record A Meeting by the River. The genre is a really unexpected for this film, and it works so beautifully. It doesn’t necessarily sound like “World Music” or “East meets West” to me, it just sounds like music. V. M. Bhatt is fantastically soulful here.
8. The Lion King
… To Die For
No laughing. Say what you want about Disney, but they have a great history of getting the music right on the big stuff (see: The Sherman Brothers, Fantasia). I even like the Elton John tunes, but I think Hans Zimmer outdid himself on the orchestral tracks. They really hold up on their own. I love when this track takes a turn for the gothic at 1:11. Very Mozart mass.
And speaking of Mozart, he does seem to be, ahem, referenced on this cut. Check out the track at 2:46, and then have a listen to this:
Mozart - Ave Verum Corpus, mm. 30-37
Still, beautiful both times.
7. She’s Gotta Have It
He’s On It
A jazz soundtrack is really hard to pull off, and I can’t think of many that I like. Spike Lee’s father, Bill Lee, is the composer on this and I think he succeeds brilliantly. Really melodic, memorable tunes. I wish he did more of this type of work.
6. Addams Family Values
The Tango
Kind of a forgettable movie, but an amazing score! I saw this for $3 at a used CD store, and picked it up with modest expectations. It blew me away on first listen. It’s really sophisticated harmonically, in a way that few film composers know how to do anymore, referencing some of the classic romantic Hollywood scores. The constant changing tempos, time signatures and harmonies are a real challenge for an orchestra to play, but they nail it here. And Bruce Dukov deserves a shout out for the fantastic violin playing.
5. The Third Man
Main title/Holly Martins arrives in Vienna
Anton Karas on zither, who supposedly got the gig after the directors heard him playing in a wine bar in Vienna. Gives me chills every time I hear this. So classic, such a great film too…
4. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Mountain
Roy And Gillian On The Road
I read an interview with John Williams where he said that this score was closest to his authentic voice as a composer. You can really hear how much of his heart is in this. The language is early 20th century, just before the atonalists had their way with the music. I love that era — you can just hear the music bursting at the seams of tonality (Rite of Spring, Transfigured Night). I also like the clarity of this production — the orchestra is a little smaller than the one that John Williams would use today, and there’s not too much reverb.
An old music teacher of mine told me that he had an assignment in college — pick a Williams score and, bar by bar, cite which composer and which work he’s taking from. Seems unduly nasty, but you could have a field day with this score. About 40 seconds into “The Mountain”, I’d say Daphnis & Chloe, Suite #2. Doesn’t matter — it’s still great.
3. A Clockwork Orange
Title Music From A Clockwork Orange (Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary - Henry Purcell)
What a great collaboration - Kubrick and Wendy Carlos. She also scored the Shining, also great, but I prefer this score. This particular track has such a vibe, simultaneously ugly and beautiful. It makesthe opening scene. I also love Rossini’s Thieving Magpie Overture, used in a twisted way to underscore a very violent scene, and Carlos’ vocoded take on Beethoven’s Ninth.
2. Edward Scissorhands
The Grand Finale
It’s been over-exposed and ripped off a million times, but that doesn’t take away from how great this score is. It seems simple, but on repeated listenings you begin to hear some of the subtle things going on in the orchestra. A good film, but the score makes it great.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
Gayane Ballet Suite (Adagio)
Amazing, surprising choices of orchestral music, featured heavily in the film. Can’t think of any other album that would have music by the “Waltz King” and Ligeti. And it just works. The Gayane Adagio is one of the loneliest pieces of music I know. Could be because just a few sections of the orchestra are playing for most of the piece. Even though you can’t hear them, you know that the rest of the orchestra is just sitting there, waiting. Check out how perfectly this works in the film.
***
Honorable mention - Amélie, Paris Texas, Leroy Shield’s music for the Little Rascals, all Baz Luhrmann films.
On the radio the other day, I heard the phrase “mountain dew”. This was unique, in that it was used to actually mean condensation. Unfortunately, my pop-culture-jammed brain went immediately to the more common usage. So instead of this:
I thought of this:
Sad.
I can actually remember as a kid hearing the name of that soda for the first time (we were a water- and juice- house, not a soda-house) and actually thinking of sun-speckled water droplets on an alpine meadow. That can’t happen again - my brain has been permanently corrupted.
This makes me think of a saying I heard once - “The definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger”.
I will not resize the user’s browser window
I will not resize the user’s browser window
I will not resize the user’s browser window
I will not resize the user’s browser window
I will not resize the user’s browser window
Had a good time doing a mix for the band Oh Fortuna, nice bunch of folks from Gainsville, Florida. Check out “Might Mountain” on the band’s myspace page.
Got me a copy of WordPress for Dummies and CSS for Assholes, customized this theme, and ported my old posts from the myspace blog. Must get away from the computer now, seek nourishment from the Daystar.
